Brian Williams has been having a bad last few weeks but you can't say he didn't have it coming: The NBC Nightly News host has taken a six month unpaid suspension with regard to a "misremembering" he reported, claiming to have been aboard a helicopter shot down by an RPG during his coverage of the Iraq war more than a decade previously. To what extent his story is false remains to be seen—was the helicopter right in front of him the one to actually be brought down, or was he more than half an hour behind?—but let it be known that we wasn't the first, nor probably the last celebrity, to tell a fat one. Here are but five musical performers who wove tall tales, some of which weren't figured out for quite a while.
Robert Johnson
It's tough to beat Robert Johnson, the most iconic representative of the blues, when it comes to legend. It's tough to know for sure what he actually said or didn't say...this was before the internet...and the fact that there are three separate "official" burial places just goes to show how mysterious the bluesman's life was. The most popular tale, and the one that he is most likely to have perpetrated, was that he had travelled to the "crossroads" as a young man to seek out the devil, selling his soul for the ability to play the guitar so well. This is, of course, hogwash, and Johnson was far from the first to tell the story of meeting a mystery man at the crossroads. The reason why so many still believe Johnson's rendition of events is because of his biography. He travelled the south and ultimately befell an early death. You can blame Satan but more likely the cause was a jealous man poisoning the performer for getting too close to his wife. Songs like "Hellhound On My Trail" are more about bad luck than demonic dogs. Johnson has to feel good knowing that he pulled one over on so many generations however.
Korla Pandit
Korla Pandit was about an American a story as you could believe...until it became even more so. The Indian keyboardist was born to a Brahmin priest and a French opera singer in New Delhi before he came to the United States and gathered acclaim for the theme music he played for the radio program Chandu The Magician. From there he went on to be a television star, known as the "godfather of exotica." Two years following his death however, a Los Angeles Magazine writer uncovered that Pandit had indeed been born John Roland Redd in Missouri, an African-American, and that he and his wife Beryl DeBeeson created the Pandit identity and sold it thanks to his particularly light skin. The front was so convincing that they didn't both to tell his children, who straight up denied the claims when the article was published during 2000.
Billy Tipton
Billy Tipton had a moderately successful career, touring as a pianist with George Meyer and then with his own trio before settling down as a talent scout and ultimately retiring from music during the '70s. The pianist had an emphysema attack during 1989 and while the paramedics attempted top save his live they realized...he wasn't a "he"...at least physically. This was news as well to his son William, who was present. Turns out Tipton had adopted the male persona for professional purposes during the '30s to get work in the music industry but then maintained the lifestyle outside of work as well. He (we'll use this pronoun out of respect for his choice of lifestyle) had been involved in several relationships, at least one believed to be homosexual and one where he claimed to his beloved that he had suffered injuries during a car accident that had malformed his genitals. He and Kitty Oakes, his final partner, adopted three sons. It seemed she was aware of his true state but they declined to tell their children.
Vanilla Ice
Unfortunately, due to the widespread availability of information, the misrememberings of musicians nowadays are far less exciting. Vanilla Ice was already dealing with an image problem, being a white man succeeding by making very poppy renditions of a musical form largely considered to be "black" (some things don't change). He tried to bolster his image by boasting of his hard upbringing on the streets of Dallas, as well as claims that he had won several high-profile motocross races before turning to hip-hop. Although he was a avid fan of motocross, all of his claims were rebutted by further investigation. He would claim that he made the stories up to protect his family. No idea on whether this led to his falling from the musical spotlight but it couldn't have helped.
No One in Hip-Hop Knows How Old They Are
Nicki Minaj was just 26 when she got into a fight at a bar. By the time the police report had emerged, she was 28 (advice: If you're faking your age, don't get into legal trouble). She wasn't the first rapper to bluff when asked however. Eminem told Howard Stern that he was 24 years old circa 1999 but it didn't take too much snooping for the press to realize he was actually 27 at the time. The best has to be when Nelly was ranked among Teen People magazine's Hottest 25 Under 25 list. He was kicked out, Danny Almonte-style, when it was revealed he was actually 28 years old.
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